In this March 2003 file photo, detectives escort Ronell Wilson from the 120th Precinct stationhouse to his arraignment.Advance File Photo

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - In 2007, a federal court jury sentenced Ronell Wilson to death for killing two detectives in Tompkinsville four years earlier.

But the former Stapleton gang member is still alive -- his life spared in 2010 by a federal appeals court which overturned his death sentence, citing prosecutorial errors in the closing argument. The murder conviction stood.

On Monday, Wilson will return to Brooklyn federal court where a new jury will determine whether he lives or dies. Opening arguments are scheduled then for his penalty-phase retrial.

The panel could vote for death, as did the original jury, or sentence Wilson to life in prison without the possibility of release. A unanimous vote is required to impose a death sentence.

Once again, the jury will remain anonymous for security reasons. The trial is expected to conclude by the end of July.

"The union and the co-workers and [detectives'] families are certainly looking forward to this long-awaited phase two of the sentencing process," said Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association. "We certainly feel justice was done the first time and, hopefully, this jury will be able to replicate that justice."

Several things have changed since Wilson, 31, was found guilty of coldly slaying Detectives Rodney J. Andrews, 34, and James V. Nemorin, 36, on March 10, 2003. The officers were murdered during an undercover gun buy-and-bust operation.

The most dramatic development is that the defendant has become a dad.

NEW DAD

Former prison guard Nancy Gonzalez confirmed at a recent hearing that Wilson fathered her 3-month-old son. The child was conceived during liaisons while she worked at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center where Wilson was housed.

The baby could hold a key to Wilson's fate.

His lawyers may well ask jurors to spare the defendant on behalf of his newborn son, arguing his life has value to his family and friends, and especially the child. Ms. Gonzalez, who has been criminally charged, has said she doesn't want her boy's father to die.

Prosecutors likely would counter that Wilson manipulated a vulnerable prison guard, and those actions demonstrate he's a continuing danger to others.

To achieve a death sentence, prosecutors must prove Wilson intentionally killed the victims. The government also alleges Wilson slayed the cops for monetary gain, that his violent proclivities and gang affiliations show his future dangerousness and that his actions severely harmed the victims' families -- each of which supports a death-penalty verdict.

At his original penalty-phase trial, prosecutors portrayed Wilson as a heartless murderer who had a chance to walk away from a planned robbery of the two cops.

Instead, Wilson chose to ride in the back of the unmarked police car, and ambushed Andrews, shooting him in the side of the head, prosecutors argued. He then turned the gun on Nemorin as the husband and father of two begged for his life.

During the retrial, defense lawyers are expected to argue that Wilson experienced severe emotional, psychiatric and behavioral problems growing up in a milieu of parental neglect, abandonment, poverty, alcohol, drugs and violence. Introduced to criminal activity at an early age by family members, he was susceptible to negative peer influence -- all of which constitute mitigating factors against a death sentence, in the defense's view.

NEW TEAM

Wilson has pulled out the stops in recent months to try to save himself.

His new defense team sought to have the defendant declared mentally impaired when he slayed the officers. A landmark 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Such persons typically have an IQ below 70.

District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, who will preside over the trial, rejected those arguments. In February, he ruled that Wilson failed to prove he suffers from "significantly subaverage intellectual functioning."

Wilson can appeal the decision but only after sentencing.

Garaufis also nixed Wilson's bid to reconfigure the courtroom.

Wilson maintained the defense table's placement impedes his views of jurors and witnesses. Even more damaging, jurors might think he's a danger due to his distance from them, he contended.

The defense table, prosecution table and jury box are parallel to each other, with prosecutors situated between jurors and the defense. The defense, prosecution and jury are all seated perpendicular to the judge's bench at the head of the courtroom.

Wilson recommended that both sides face the judge with prosecutors in front of the defense. Jurors would be to their left.

A spokesman for Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, declined comment on the retrial. David Stern, one of Wilson's lawyers, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.